Blu-ray Review: Dillinger (MGM)
Screenwriter John Milius, who penned Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn, among others, made his feature length directorial debut with Dillinger starring Warren Oates in the title role. Released in 1973, American International Pictures hoped to capitalize on the success of Bonnie and Clyde, released just a few years earlier. A moderate success at the box […]
4K UHD Review: In the Heat of the Night (Criterion Collection)
Directed by Norman Jewison (Moonstruck, The Hurricane), In the Heat of the Night won five Oscars in 1967: Best Picture, Best Actor (Rod Steiger), Best Screenplay (Stirling Silliphant), Best Editing (Hal Ashby), and Best Sound. Nearly sixty years later, the film is still a powerful moral drama and fascinating character study. The story begins when […]
In the Heat of the Night (Blu-ray)
Directed by Norman Jewison (Moonstruck, The Hurricane), In the Heat of the Night won five Oscars in 1967: Best Picture, Best Actor (Rod Steiger), Best Screenplay (Stirling Silliphant), Best Editing (Hal Ashby), and Best Sound. Nearly fifty years later, the film is still a powerful moral drama and a fascinating character study. The story begins […]
DVD Review: Badlands (Criterion Collection)
“He wanted to die with me, and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms.” Narrated from the point of view of fifteen-year-old Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek) Terrence Malick’s Badlands can be seen as a kind of modern day Romeo and Juliet, seen through the angst and frustration that existed in mid-20th century America. […]
Blu-ray Review: Two-Lane Blacktop (Criterion Collection)
An extension of the themes that dominated films of the late 1960’s—youthful alienation and disillusionment—1971’s Two-Lane Blacktop is set against the vast, open spaces of America’s highways. Director Monte Hellman, a veteran of the Roger Corman school of filmmaking (Corman also helped to launch the directing careers of Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard and Peter […]
Blu-ray Review: Return of the Magnificent Seven
A cowboy retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven ushered in more realistic depictions of life in the American west. The film was exciting, had plenty of action and enough movie stars to live up to its moniker of ‘magnificent.’ The sequel, Return of the Magnificent Seven is somewhat mis-titled, as Yul Brynner […]